Jason M. Lemkin
Co-Founder and CEO of EchoSign from inception through tens of millions in cash-flow positive SaaS revenue and acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc.
Jason then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where EchoSign was named the most successful acquisition of 2011-12, posting 199% YoY growth.
I Was Wrong. Associates at VC Firms Are a Great Way to Get Funded.
I’ll admit to a blatant bias. I thought associates at VC firms, no matter how well intentioned, did nothing but waste founders’ time. At EchoSign, I’d get dozens of “Big Fan of Your Product” emails from VC associates, at a time when I really didn’t need any capital, and they’d each burn an hour of [...]
Why There Is a 50/50 Chance You’ll Tilt Upmarket in SaaS
When you’re starting off in SaaS, it’s very tempting to target small businesses. After all, when you launch, your product will be pretty feature poor. You won’t have the resources to service the Fortune 500. And in fact, unless you’ve worked and lived inside the Fortune 500, you won’t understand them at all. How they [...]
What a Great VP Sales Actually Does. Where The Magic Is. And When to Hire One.
In SaaS, #1 most common mishire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. In fact, there a VC saying that I used to really hate. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” [...]
Post-Traction, You Need to Spend 20% of Your Time Recruiting
Love him or hate him, Nick Saban is the most successful college football coach of the current generation. Winner of 3 out of 4 of the last national championships. And how often is he recruiting? Every. Single. Day. In fact, every single day he and his team go into their Recruiting War Room, and analyze [...]
Hire the Right Type of VP Marketing — Or You’ll Just End Up With a Bunch of Blue Pens with Your Logo On Them
Apologies to all those to whom this is already well known. But, I know many of you have never hired a head of marketing before. And as soon as you get your MSP (Minimum Sellable Product) out the door, and you’ve got your first 10 customers under your belt — you’re probably going to want [...]
You Really Don’t Know if Your Market is Too Small For Quite a While
One of the things that causes a lot of anxiety in SaaS is market size. If you’re creating the latest Pinning app, or Social Network, the odds are surely against you. But in consumer internet, often you know if you hit it, however low the odds are, at least the market is huge (or at [...]
CLTV Isn’t The Whole Story. Don’t Shortchange Second-Order Revenue.
Everyone in SaaS talks about CLTV (or LTV, same thing). The lifetime value of your customer. You can see a great detailed analysis of how to calculate it here. And then, everyone goes on to calculate some magic metric telling
From Initial Traction to Initial Scale (~$10M in ARR): The Hardest Phase. But — The Cavalry is Coming.
The hardest phase of SaaS, at least for the founders, is the phase from Initial Traction ($1-$2m in ARR + 100% YoY growth + 50% of new customers from zero-cost marketing) to the next phase — Initial Scale. Inevitability in SaaS comes around $10m in ARR, plus or minus. Once you hit this point, [...]
Tier 1 VC is Great. But More Money May Be Even Better.
One thing you hear a lot is how great it is to get a Quality VC into your company. Take Quality Money, at a lower price, they say, over Crummier Money at a higher price. Certainly, there’s a lot of truth in this. The last thing you want is an investor that isn’t up for [...]
How To Know You’ve Hit First Traction In SaaS. The Moment When You’ve Got A Real Company.
There’s a common meme in Venture Capital that traction is tough to quantify, but you know it when you see it. Well, let’s take a stab at it anyway. Quantifying it. Because I don’t think Initial Traction is at all nebulous in SaaS — and I think it occurs earlier than many think. Here’s a [...]
SaaStr on TechCrunch! The M&A “Nibble” And What To Do When You Get One
Hopefully, you saw us last weekend on TechCrunch. We’re trying to do our small part and hopefully save you a few headaches and mistakes as you scale your SaaS start-up from $0 to Initial Traction to $10m in ARR, $20m in ARR, and beyond. We’re glad — on a good day — to get as [...]
7 Steps to Getting to Cash-Flow Positive Faster (in SaaS)
There are pros and cons, in these days of Fat Start-ups, to being cash-flow positive. In an ideal world, you’d experience both hyper-growth, and free cash flow from almost Day 1. The reality is though, in SaaS, especially if you are sales-driven, that’s often gonna be tough. You’ll need some capital to get either off [...]
A Simple Commitment Test For You And Your Co-Founders
As we’ve talked about before, the great thing about SaaS, is it compounds. Once you have something, it builds on itself. But it takes time. It takes 7-10 to build something real. If you are reading this, you’re probably up for that 7+ year commitment, assuming you’re fortune enough to get there. >> But what [...]
The All-In Dilution from an Outside CEO: Just Make Sure You Do the Math
First, before we get into the math and the pie chart below, let me be clear: I am in NO way against bringing in an outside CEO to run your SaaS company. #1: If you lack CEO skills on your team, you should do this on Day 1. #2: And even if you have enough [...]
5 Simple Ideas to Immediately Improve Your Conversion Rates in SaaS
Recently, I was asked a great question about Improving Conversion Rates. If you haven’t done this in the past, I’ve got my 4 best suggestions that will work to get your conversion rates up. If you’re past this point — my apologies. However, before we get there, let me state the obvious, that there are [...]
